


a different kind of role

by wintervioleteye (hawkguyed)



Series: all aboard to Spookville [2]
Category: Sanctuary (TV), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Empath ability, Gen, Sanctuary-verse, TV quotes this time, now take me to your leader, so welcome to SHIELD, this is their first meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkguyed/pseuds/wintervioleteye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with a dull throb that refuses to go away, and that is how Phil Coulson eventually ends up as part of SHIELD. (Sanctuary AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a different kind of role

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you lucdarling for beta-ing <3 without you god knows how many odds and ends I'd have missed (and I miss a lot). 
> 
> Yes, Sanc-verse has sucked me in. This is a back-story-ish kinda fic, takes place before '[sanctuary for all](http://archiveofourown.org/works/370435)'. (If you haven't read that, start with the backstories and yes there will be more, I'm insane, yes I know).
> 
> Used a couple of shows as a reference especially for PTSD counselling (not a doctor, so uh, yes), and completely winged it for all the medical nonsense. And technological nonsense.

It starts with the dull throb of pain one afternoon while talking to one of the soldiers - young and brown haired - who has been his patient for almost a month now. This is the third time this week and the twelfth in a month, and despite the aspirin he’d downed just before lunch, it steadfastly refuses to go away. 

Dr. Phillip Coulson leans back a little, forcing his mind to focus on what the man (his name is Zimmerman, if he hasn’t remembered wrongly), hand moving on automatic to jot down relevant notes. He’s halfway through striking through the loop that forms the ‘t’ in Afghanistan when the pain strikes again, a rock concert with the volume and bass turned up to max that makes the man flinch, pencil abruptly snapping in half and clattering to the ground in two broken pieces. 

Zimmerman glances up, a shadow of concern on his face. Phil can feel the concern radiating off him in waves, even if the boy doesn’t show it. It’s what makes him good at his job, reading these emotions and gently coaxing heart-breaking tales out of these war-shattered soldiers. It also makes for long days in the office and late nights spent over luke-warm coffee and a stack of paperwork that never seems to end.

To his credit, Phil merely pastes on a bland smile and shakes his head, reaching into his jacket for another pencil. “Do continue, lieutenant.”

There’s a burst of concern-worry-relief that Phil catches as Zimmerman settles back, rubbing at his eyes before telling Phil about one of the ambushes that had gone wrong in Afghanistan.

Phil is pretty sure that he’s missed quite a lot of details when the soldier suddenly stops talking and looks at him. It’s only thanks to sheer luck and good memory that he manages to recall what Zimmerman always talks about. 

He looks up from the half-filled paper in front of him. “Has any of your feelings changed?” 

The soldier in front of him nods, just imperceptibly, but something tugs at Phil. The lack of change in those little emotional bursts he’s been reading. As far as he’s concerned, Zimmerman isn’t telling the truth but- 

The pain spikes again, white-hot through the back of his head and Phil barely manages to muffle his groan in time. This time it’s worse, muting the familiar wash of emotions that emanates from Zimmerman, and Phil squeezes his eyes shut, fingers digging into the hard plastic of his chair and trying his best to will the migraine-level pain away. 

He’s vaguely aware of the door opening and a nurse hurriedly ushering the bewildered soldier out, struggling to clamp down on the sudden flood of emotions that he’s sensing. 

Phil tries to stand, but his muscles feel as if they’ve turned into jelly, sliding to a half-sprawl against his chair. His notes are strewn across the floor, pencil rolling somewhere under the desk, but Phil is too far too much in pain to care where his stationery is going. 

His head thunks back against the padded seat as consciousness dances a little further from him. The last thing he’s aware of is the shadow falling across him, muting the glare of the afternoon sun, and voices. 

Actual voices, two male and one female. 

Phil thinks that he’s voiced a groan, but he can’t quite be sure, blessed darkness closing over him. 

\-- 

He wakes up to a pair of voices above him and an unnatural feeling of emptiness. Phil has lived with a current of emotions buffeting him, but now there is nothing, even though he can hear obvious worry in the voices. 

They sound familiar, like the ones he’d heard before blacking out. 

Phil’s eyes feel as if they’ve been glued shut, but he forces them open anyway, blinking blearily up into a plain, white ceiling, fan spinning lazily above him. Someone has been considerate enough to turn down the lights, and the owners of the voices are barely illuminated, shadows standing beside his bed. 

Bed. That’s not right. 

“I’ll go get Nick.” There’s a series of clicks that sound a little like heels on concrete before something slams shut, and Phil is aware that there’s only one figure beside the bed now. 

“Hey.” The voice comes from his right, a grinning face popping into view. 

The man looks young, but there’s something in his blue eyes that belies the world he’s seen. His hair is spiked in twenty different directions, mussed as if he’d been on a ship recently. There’s a band around his neck and an earpiece tucked behind the collar of his black jacket, with a logo emblazoned on his sleeve that Phil can’t quite make out in the dim light. 

“Where-?”

Strong arms (that Phil guesses belong to the man) help him up into a sitting position, before pressing a cup of cool water to his lips. Phil drinks, grateful for the silence and trying to put two and two together to figure out where he is. He remembers Zimmerman and the headache that he’d been suffering from for the past few days, but little after that. 

The stranger perches on the side of the bed, mattress sinking a little with his weight. “SHIELD Central. How’s the head?” 

Phil gingerly presses fingers against his temple, where the pain had lanced through earlier. The pain is completely gone, not even a ghost of the dull throb that usually lingers after every episode. It surprises him, because none of the medications he’s tried have managed to fully erase the evidence that continues to dog him even after the headache has faded. 

His eyes widen at the realization, drawing a chuckle from the man sitting on the edge of his bed. 

A hand is shoved into Phil’s field of vision, making the doctor look up into a mouthful of sharp, barely elongated teeth that reminds him of a wolf. “I’m Clint.” 

It’s as if he can tell what Phil is thinking. (Which Phil would have said was impossible about a few years ago, back when he was still with the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Virginia, but now, it’s hard to tell).

He reaches out and shakes Clint’s hand, noting the firm grip and the roughness that he recognizes from his patients’ hands from handling guns and related equipment. Phil guesses that the calluses are about five to six years old, possibly even older. Nothing about Clint could easily be identified as a service-man, but he certainly is exposed to more weaponry than an ordinary civilian with a clear knowledge of handling them. Phil looks at Clint. The way he sits suggests non-military though he’s clearly trained and fully capable of handling himself. It’s the lack of emotional input that Phil has come to rely on when coaxing his patients which places a damper on his assessment, and he mentally curses himself for depending on something too much.

The word mercenary pops up in his mind. 

Phil is halfway through a list of possible occupations (he’d gotten as far as militant) when the door opens. 

The man standing in the doorway is a face that Phil never expects to see. It’s a face from his childhood, back when his father’s old colleagues would visit and he would peek down the stairs out of curiosity to get a glimpse. 

Phil remembers him, the one who had stood out with an eyepatch and a streak of white at his temples. The one who would bring books every time he visited. The one who never seemed to age a day until he suddenly disappeared sometime after Phil’s twelfth birthday. 

“Uncle Nick?” The words are out before he even realizes. 

There’s a muffled snicker and a resounding smack from somewhere beside him, but Phil is busy staring at the man he hasn’t seen in years. Nick Fury still looks exactly the same as Phil remembers on that night in September, almost twenty-five years ago. It shouldn’t be possible. 

Nick smiles. “Hello, Phillip.” 

It’s as if he’s stepped back into his past, remembering how he had hidden behind his parents as the eye-patch wearing man crouched down to talk to him, dripping water onto the carpet from the storm outside. 

Nick is wearing a band similar to Clint’s, he notices. 

There are so many questions that Phil wants to ask (what is SHIELD, who are these people, how did you find me), but he doesn’t know where to start. Instead he settles for the first one that comes to mind.

“Why didn’t you come to their funerals?” Phil hates that it comes out sounding almost like an accusation, but Nick hadn’t been there when Phil collected his father’s flag or buried his mother. It feels as if all the years in the CIA and then the field have finally caught up to Phil, and he slumps back into the surprisingly comfortable hospital bed. 

A hand that feels like Clint’s squeezes his shoulder and just for a moment, Phil thinks he feels a jolt of warmth-friendship-compassion before it’s gone. He concentrates on that flash of emotion as Nick sits down beside the bed.

“It’s a complicated matter, Phil,” and for the first time Nick looks tired. “You didn’t think that you were the only Abnormal in the world, did you?”

Clint grins as the words register in Phil’s mind, baring teeth that are starting to look more like fangs. 

Nick reaches over, handing Phil a file that is easily two inches thick. It’s emblazoned with the same symbol that’s on Clint’s sleeve, blood-red words spelling out confidential and top secret stamped across the top. 

“There was an idea, a long time ago. To bring together a group of individuals both human and Abnormal, so that when humanity discovered that they weren’t alone on the planet, could keep the peace between the two races.” Nick makes a gesture to the file on Phil’s lap that’s opened to the first page. 

His gaze flickers over the photos clipped onto a report, photos that looks incredibly familiar. Phil remembers this one, the case in New Orleans (his first one, too) where their assailant had simply vanished from a room, the only escape route being the three-inch ventilation shaft that no human could possibly fit into. 

There’s another one two pages back. A psychiatrist he had known. Phil remembers this one too, the man had mentored some of the best and pulled some of the most broken soldiers back from the brink. The word empath is stamped under a smiling photo of him, and Phil thinks he understands a little more. 

“SHIELD.” Phil’s fingers trace over the logo stamped on the upper left hand corner of the report. 

“Do you know what you are?” Clint idly traces a circle over where Phil’s ankle is, looking up at him through his lashes. 

The doctor shakes his head slightly. He doesn’t miss how Nick’s eyes narrow, as if there had been a secret that was supposed to be entrusted to him but never was. Phil isn’t quite sure he wants to know either, considering Clint’s tone when he’d said it. 

Nick gestures to the band that’s wrapped snuggly around Clint’s neck. 

It comes off with a click that barely gives Phil any warning, the much-missed wave of emotion slamming into him and sending a jolt of pain through the back of his head. He can read it despite how muted it is, as if Clint is clamping down on it. There’s the soft pulse of warmth and home, a spark of happiness and a tiny sliver of darkness and fear so well hidden he could have almost missed it. 

“Your shields were never established because you weren’t trained. All the emotions you’ve been exposed to over the years have only made it worse.” Nick glances over to Clint, and the man reaches up, hands fitting the band back over his own throat. It’s as if the faucet has been turned off, shreds of emotion finally bleeding out into a blank slate. 

Phil understands now. The jigsaw puzzle of almost random occurrences that has never made sense seems to click into place. 

“It’s not going to stop, Phil. There aren’t many surviving untrained empaths, and very few that have lived longer than five years after the first headaches manifest.” Nick places a single card on top of Phil’s blanket-covered knees. The design is simple, the logo he had seen on the folder and a line of numbers printed in the center of the card. 

“The brain isn’t designed to handle an empath’s level of exposure. If you’re lucky, it’ll only be a constant headache for the rest of your life until the emotional exposure drives you insane. In a worse case scenario, you’ll suffer a cerebral aneurysm.” 

Fury stands, leaving the file and card in Phil’s lap. It’s a choice that only Phil can make, and Nick doesn’t expect him to make it now. 

“Your father was one of my best agents. I’m not asking you to decide now. Take some time to think about it.” 

Phil is vaguely aware of Fury’s hand on his shoulder, mind reeling from what he’s just been told. He feels a burst of protective-paternalism from the older man at the contact, and then it’s gone. 

He’s alone in the infirmary again. 

\-- 

SHIELD’s medical officer (a Dr. Jane Foster) clears Phil to leave the next day. Clint is standing in the doorway (sans neck-band, Phil notices), with a wide grin on his face and a set of keys that don’t seem to belong to a car in his hand, as if waiting for him. Phil can read the mix of anticipation and nervousness that emanates from him. 

He slides his wallet back into his pocket, thumbing the card that’s pressed up against the worn leather. 

There are barely-there dark circles under his eyes; Phil hadn’t slept much that night, Fury’s words had been echoing in his mind the whole time. A yawn threatens to rise to the surface, but Phil quashes it. 

Clint’s grin widens, twirling the keys around a finger. “Where to, Coulson?” 

Phil’s lips quirk up in a semblance of a smile. He knows what his decision is. “Take me to your leader.”


End file.
